


God Bless the Child

by Miss M (missm)



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Gen, Not A Fix-It, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-11
Updated: 2013-08-11
Packaged: 2017-12-23 04:29:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/921993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missm/pseuds/Miss%20M
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He was ten now, almost a man, and certainly old enough to know the difference between right and wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	God Bless the Child

**Author's Note:**

  * For [voksen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/voksen/gifts).
  * Inspired by [the difficulty lies in being just](https://archiveofourown.org/works/838351) by [voksen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/voksen/pseuds/voksen). 



> This is based on [the difficulty lies in being just](http://archiveofourown.org/works/838351) by Voksen, a divergence AU as brilliant as it is chilling in its exploration of the basic premise: how would things have turned out if Javert had met Myriel as a child? (Hint: not for the better.)
> 
> Title is nicked from the eponymous Billie Holiday song. Huge thanks to Carmarthen and Stripy for beta-reading, and of course to Voksen for letting me play in her sandbox -- I hope you'll like it!

The hour had struck two, but the boy Javert was not asleep. He lay on his back on a narrow cot, hands folded over his breast, eyes turned towards the ceiling. He was waiting. 

Three weeks ago, his mother had been arrested again. This time he would not wait for her. He was ten now, almost a man, and certainly old enough to know the difference between right and wrong. His mother might never have learned it, but that was no excuse. As the police took her away, and as she kept craning her neck towards him, crying and pleading for him to wait for her release, he had made up his mind. Her mistakes were not his, and there was no reason why he should suffer because of them. 

He would make his way southwards, to Toulon. Work could be found in the docks, and perhaps, in time -- the bagne always needed guards, he knew. Guards should be honest, better than the convicts they watched, but he had every intention of being an honest man. Unlike his mother and his father, he was not a criminal.

And so he had been walking for weeks, sleeping under bushes, washing in small mountain streams, working when work was to be found for the likes of him. When he could not find work to pay for his food, he went without: if he could not earn his own keep, he did not deserve it. 

In this manner he had reached Brignoles, late at night when everyone was asleep and there was no possibility of asking if anyone needed someone to run errands, or to herd sheep, or do any kind of work fit for someone who was young but still honest and reliable, despite his vagabond appearance. It was cold, but as always he did not like the thought of stealing into a cellar or an outbuilding. On entering the village, however, he had discovered a garden with low fences and several bushes that looked as if they might provide shelter for the night. He went there, though not without a certain amount of guilt.

Then, of course, Monsieur le curé had found him, but rather than turning Javert out -- as would have been his right -- he had invited him in, offered him bread and tea, and finally a bed. Charity was part of a priest's duties, so Javert had accepted, though it made him uncomfortable that the curé would reward intruders rather than punish them. But he knew he had no right to turn down Monsieur le curé's offer, that doing so would have been a far worse offence. So he ate and drank, and when the time came to go to bed, he did, bowing his head under Monsieur le curé's prayers. 

There had been a man asleep in the room already, his huge form huddled on the bed, his snores loud and rhythmical. Javert had heard and seen worse, and he had not been afraid. But some sort of instinct reared its head inside him, setting his skin on edge: this man -- this other imposer upon Monsieur le curé's charity -- there was something suspicious about him. Even in the darkness, even if he had yet to hear the man's voice or see his face, Javert felt it, as surely as a dog senses the presence of a fox. 

He had narrowed his eyes and stared hard at the sleeping form. A vagabond, to be sure, but what if there was more to him --?

Clouds shifted on the night sky, and sudden moonlight shone into the room and fell on the man's face. It was rough and bearded, with thick brows meeting in the middle, and Javert saw that the man's head was shaven. He drew in a sharp breath. He had seen such heads before.

The horror of it -- a convict, asleep in Monsieur le curé's house! It was not right, not right at all. Javert's stomach roiled. He swallowed, blinking, trying to calm himself down. It was in the middle of the night, and there were nowhere else he could go; and surely it would be wrong to leave Monsieur le curé alone with a convict in the house, though Javert thought it would be equally wrong to disturb him in his sleep. He resolved to wait and, at the first stirrings of dawn, quietly slip away to raise the alarm. Surely Monsieur le curé couldn't know what sort of man this was.

Thus he lay stiffly on his back, stretched out on the bed, his eyes wide open, waiting. His ears listened for the smallest break in the convict's snores -- if the man tried to escape, Javert would raise the alarm, he wasn't afraid -- but how slowly the time passed! His body was so tense it almost hurt, and he thought, somewhat petulantly, that he'd have slept better in the garden.

There was a sudden groan from the bed, followed by muffled whimpers -- and then the convict suddenly sat up in bed with a yell that turned Javert's blood to ice for a moment. "Don't!" he bellowed, flailing about with his arms. "Please!"

Javert held his breath. The man whimpered, obviously caught in some sort of nightmare. He shook his head, burying his face in his arms. The moonlight fell on his wrists, and even in the dim light Javert's sharp eyes could make out the scars. His heart beat hard in his chest; he kept still, not daring to move as much as a finger.

"Don't," the convict complained again, but this time it was a sob rather than a shout. Then, as suddenly as he'd sat up, he flopped down on the bed, his nightmare apparently past. After a while, the snores recommenced.

Javert let out a long breath between his teeth, careful to keep it silent. If he had been in doubt before, he could be nothing but certain now. No innocent man would wail like that.

 

***

 

In the morning, while the sun was still nothing more than a faint stripe on the horizon and the house was still silent, he quietly rose and made the bed -- an easy thing to do, as he had neither slept nor moved much -- and slipped out the back door without making a sound. 

A visit to the appropriate authorities later, he was on his way again; it would not do, he thought, to stay, not in this place. The bread he'd eaten the night before would last him a little longer. At this thought his stomach gave a twist, and the image of Monsieur le curé's kind old face rose unbidden before his eyes; he frowned at himself, forcing it away.

He wasn't a child anymore. He had chosen his path, and he had done what was right: Monsieur le curé might believe in charity, but Javert knew he must put his trust in the difference between right and wrong. He squared his shoulders and fixed his gaze on the road ahead, his mind at ease, knowing that justice would be done.


End file.
